URL Shortener Service Announces New Innovative Feature

July 6, 2010 - PRLog -- sweeMail © 2010 is what OneCent.US founder and owner Bill Purkins calls the URL shortening services new method of using shortened URL names and redirect pages for public relations and marketing purposes through pre-formatting emails to be sent to voice opinions to congresspeople and/or to recommend products, serivices or websites to friends of the end user.

"We know the name is unique," said Purkins, OneCent.US owner and creator. "weeMail was already taken by someone else, and there was already also a Swe-mail or something like that, apparently a Swedish email product of some sort, so "sweeMail" it is. What it is it what it means to you. I don't really know. It's catchy and sort of descriptive, so I like it, and I couldn't find the term used anywhere else yet, so unless someone can tell us otherwise, we are claiming it for our own."

What a sweeMail IS, is that instead of just creating a straightforward URL redirect link for Twitter and email use to avoid running out of Tweet characters and/or avoid long ugly or cryptic URL's that can break apart in emails that go to another web page,  a sweeMail is where the person creating the redirect on the OneCent.US home page can format an email intended for the end user to take a shortened link and it will open their deafult email client  and format an email that is either already addressed to a particular party, or to be addressed by the end user, generally to express an opinion or a call for action in the political arena, or also just to recommend products services or web sites to friends."

"It's really sort of neat," said Mr. Purkins. "I mean, it's really quite simple, but we've poked around and can't find anyone else doing exactly what we're doing here, so maybe this is my 15 minutes. I already laid claim to it in the Urban Dictionary, heh."

Onecent.us is a dot US domain free URL shortener service, not unlike TinyURL.com and bit.ly, two of the biggest players in the competitive and yet relatively young URL shortening service business, which really blossomed just a few years ago when Twitter came along and took the Internet by storm with its 140 character message length restriction.

OneCent.US appeals to American users on a patriotic angle, i.e. "Why outsource even this to domain names in Libya and other foreign countries?" he said, and they also donate 90% of their advertising revenue to charities that their users cast a ballot for each time they create a short URL on the free service."

"It's a neat business model, we think," said Purkins, "and we feel good about it. But we ARE in business to make money and think 90% to charity is more than generous and we can hold our heads high with no guilt. Most major charities spend FAR more than 10% on raising more funds and operating costs. We have a solid list of the most reputable US charities for people to pick from to tell US where the money will go at the end of each month, and they can also suggest new ones to add to the list, and if they check out that's cool with us. We'll add 'em. But we're a business and have no desire to be a 5013C.

"We also have NO expectations of knocking the big boys like bit.ly and tinyURL.com off the top of the hill. They're great services and we love 'em both. All we want is our niche, based on the dot US angle, US domain names being short at 2 characters like the other foreign countries, and also the charity gig, which makes us feel good. And, of course, we think we're different in at least a couple of repects . We allow people to add a movie style RatedG, R or X to their short URLS for comfort feel and warnings, which no one else seems to do, and also the sweeMail, which we think is gonna be copycatted almost immediately. If not? It's a cute toy and I'll use it myself.

"Besides, both tinyURL.com and bit.ly are up against the wall already in their generated URL lengths it seems and are issuing 6 character names already. Short URLS count in base 36 arithmetic, which means in one character you can count from 1 to 36, using 0 through 9 and then the 26 letters of the alphabet, so you only got to TWO characters when you hit 37. It seems like "so what?" at first glance but by the time you're up to six characters you will have issued 2,176,782,336 unique names. That's over two BILLION, folks. No worries, at 7 characters it exlodes up to 78,364,164,096, over 78 billion, so no one is worried I think. Sorry for the math lesson, by the way.

"Also, bit.ly has already started relying on some other short domain names to take some of the load off but there's a loss of branding there I think, which doesn't seem very desirable to me. Personally, anticipating some success I HOPE, I had the foresight to buy up a bunch of 3 character dot US names, like 1-z.us and others similar to create a family of brands, which we don't really need yet, but we're as good as gold for the future. Chances are I won't be around to see 78 billion anyway, but if I am? I might just be fishing.

"Finally, one thing that bugs me is that people have been reluctant to embrace dot US domains for some reason, but we think they absolutely rock. Mind you, nothing against Libya. We love 'em and our countries have re-established diplomatic relations and that's a beautiful thing. We also love bit.ly and the others. Good.ly is another one, they donate 55% of their revenue to charity which we love, but I think they might be struggling to gain marketshare. I'm not sure. I do know they do not seem to be getting much Twitter traffic yet, but then again, neither are we.

"Dot US domains can only be owned by American citizens and there's a certain national pride and also comfort level in that as well. So? Check out http://OneCent.us if you Tweet and try our new sweeMail and let us know what you think."